Table of Contents
I. About me, contact info.
II. About this guide.
III. What is Chaining?
IV. How does Chaining work?
V. Does Chaining do anything special for me?
VI. What special effects do the chain levels have?
VII. What do i need to chain?
VIII. How can I tell what Chain level I'm on?
IX. Chaining and Loot.
X. Chaining and Gear drops.
XI. Chaining and XP.
XII. Chaining and stealing.
XIII. Reverse Chain Effect.
XIV. Good Chaining locations.
XV. Bad Chaining Locations.
XVI. MoBs it's pointless to chain.
XVII. Chaining Rare Game
XVIII. Good Reverse Chaining locations.
XIX. Uses of Poison.
XX. Unconfirmed Rumors.
XXI. Total Load Of Crap - confirmed to be false.
XXII. Exploitation of Reverse Chain and theft.
XXIII. Legal mumbo jumbo.
XXIV. Credit.
I. About me, contact info
My name is Zarius, and this is, yes, my first guide
ever. I wrote on this topic due to the startling lack of existance,
even years after the game was released. All of the foot work
pertaining to actually chaining, how it works, and the like, is
entirely my baseline. I may make updates and/or alterations to
the data based on what others tell me, and I will give credit to the
*first* person that tells me. If I don't credit you, it's because
someone else told me first. If I don't credit anyone, it's because,
by some random miracle, I found the data first. Chances are I
won't find it, though I certainly WILL test it. If I find it to be bunk, I'll
put the info under the Total Load Of Crap section. If I am unable
to confirm or deny your info, it will go under the Unconfirmed
Rumors. And yes, if I get enough people stating that it is acurate,
I will make the apropriate modifications based on community
confirmation. Do not, i repeat, DO NOT simply email me to tell
me that I'm wrong about something. Tell me what the correct info
is, and I will test it and/or update my guide. If you just email me to
whine, I will put you under my Flamers, Idiots, and Jerks section
(not in as of the first draft, but will be added later if needed). You
can contact me at Dragonorb13@gmail.com. Put something in
the subject line about my guide, whether it's questions,
comments, updates, or grammatical corrections (yes, I will fix
grammatical errors)
II. About this guide
This FAQ's sole, pure, and only purpose is to explain
kill Chains, what they do, and how they affect various things, and
why you would bother with them. This IS an FAQ, meaning that I
am going to answer F.requently A.sked Q.uestions, even if most
of them are questions that I have asked and am answering. I am
NOT making a full walk through, I am NOT making an FAQ on
auto leveling, I am NOT making a guide on Marks, though I will
reference them later, I am NOT making a guide on anything else.
JUST chains. If you have an issue with this, go to someone
else's guide for your info. Berserker and Split Infinity both
excellent walk throughs that i have referenced on several
occasions on my many play throughs. For everything else I've
ever wanted to know about, there's already a guide. This one is
for Chains.
III. What is Chaining?
Chaining is the act of killing large numbers of
monsters falling into the same Classification in the Bestiary. Yes,
the ingame Bestiary is the one I am refering to, and is the best
and most readily accessible tool for determining if an enemy will
break your chain or not. Examples: Wolves and Hyenas fall
under the Wolf classification, thus chains will continue. Steelings
and Skeletons do not fall under the same classification, thus
chains will break.
IV. How does Chaining work?
As you kill more and more enemies of the same
Classification, you will note an increase in Chain Level. There is
no set number where the chains will level up, but there is a way to
make a rough estimate as to when. There are a number of factors
in this.
Enemy level vs Party's average level. If you
massivly out match your enemy (such as farming Wolves after
reaching Phon Coast), your chain will take forever to build levels
up. If your enemy massively out matches you (going straight into
the northern Westersands at the start of the game. Yes, you can
do it. You just can't go through the Westersands Gate in town)
you will get your levels much faster... provided that you survive
the encounter.
Commonality of enemy. If your enemy
breeds like rabits, such as wolves, chaining them will be
convenient, but will take much longer to build than a chain of
rarer enemies, such as Entites. Yes, you can chain entites and
elementals. It's just much harder than chaining other mobs.
RLF. Sometimes, you just get the Devil's
own luck, and you'll get a full level wolf chain in 40. This is shown
in the Random Luck Factor. Sometimes, you just get hit in the
head with a brick, and your chain of Entites goes on for 80 kills
before you even get your first level. This is shown in the Random
Luck Factor. Yes, this is a real pain in the rear. Nothing i can do
about it.
So that you don't get concerned that there is no way at
all to tell when you'll go up, I'll give you a couple small tips.
-When you get your first chain level, if it's
under 20, double it... that's ABOUT how much it will take to get to
the next chain level and the one after. This is never 100%
acurate, but it will give you an idea.
-When you get your first chain level, if it's
over 15 leave it be. that's ABOUT how much it will take to get to
the next chain level and the one after. This is never 100%
acurate.
-Yes, there is overlap there. Yes, the over
lap is important. If you get your first Chain level up at 16 kills, you
could get your next one at 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 48, 49, 50... you
could get your last chain level up at 48, 49, 50, 51, 80, 81, 82, 83,
84... ect. You could get your first chain level up at 16, your
second one at 46, and your third one at 51. I have seen this. So,
no, it's not set, but it WILL give you a rough time frame.
- You will rarely ever go over 100 kills in a Chain
before you get the last Chain level up. -Update, thanks to
SaphyreRouge: Gave me a decent video showing him attaining final
rank well after 100 (114, to be precise), as such this area is being
reduced from a 'never' marker to a 'rarely ever' marker. Thanks!
For those that may send me an email saying you told me first, sure
you did... only problem is that this was the first guy to show me in a
manner which I was willing to accept. One other person send me a
REALLY bad picture, which I could barely make out, even though I
was already aware of what it was supposed read.-
Things that will break your chains:
-Killing an enemy with a different
classification than your chain.
-Entering a "safe zone". No, this does NOT
mean a zone with a save crystal, this means any town, outpost,
village, city, or the like. Many of them do have save crystals, but
the two are unrelated. No, this does not mean any zone with a
Merchant, though if you see more than one merchant, it probably
is a safe zone. More specifically, a Safe Zone is any map area
that only shows Vahn as your team, no matter how yo uhave it set
up.
-Healing at save crystal. No, walking
THROUGH the zone with a save crystal will not reset your chain,
just talking to it (healing or saving). This is proven by farming the
Panthers in the jungle near Osmone Plains. you farm then, go
THROUGH the crystal zone to the entrance of the one past it,
then come back and kill more. You don't heal, you keep your
chain. You heal, it's gone.
-Poaching. What's that you say, poaching
doesn't give you XP or LP? Such a shame, since the only point
behind Chaining is loot, which Poach DOES give you.
Things that don't break your chain, though they seem
like they should.
-Stone. Stone is the exact opposite of
Poach for this purpose. It will give you XP and LP but no loot.
Hence why it won't break your chain. Remember, loot gains
are all your chain give even so much as a rat poo about.
-Poison. most useful spell out there for the
puroses of chaining. Still gives XP/LP and, more importantly, it
gives loot. But it does not break the chain. This is because you
are not actively attacking the enemy. You are not personally
causing the death, the poison is, so it falls through the cracks.
You still get full credit for the kill, but you also get the same
drops you would from enemies in your chain.
V. Does Chaining do anything special for me?
Yes! Yes, it does little padawan, indeed it does! What
it does is, as you chain more and more enemies together, your
Chain level will increase. First, and most important effect, is that
you will notice a rise in loot drops. Both in the frequency of drops
and in the ammount of loot in a drop. Why kill four wolves at base
line when a Loot level 4 drop might drop the same 4 Wolf Pelts?
(Actually, the low level wolves don't drop multiple pelts, but the
Hyenas do. This was just an example) Also, as you get larger
chains, you might notice that your health and mana are being
restored faster than normal. This is the case. A high chain level
will cause small heals, small mana restores, and even short term
Protection and Shell effects. Before you bother asking, no. No,
you can not use this as a battle tactic to aid you in finishing off a
boss faster/easier. There are only one or two instances where
this would even be remotely possible, and you'd spend more
time and energy killing the adds than would have been spent just
killing the boss out right. Good thought though, cookie for the
idea.
What, you ask, does this have to do with anything?
Well, remember those lovely Forgotten Grimiores in the Bazaar
Goods? They are alot easier to get with out crippling yourself
when you know how to farm loot the faster way. I said faster, not
fast. There is no fast way to farm anything in any FF game that
I've ever played.
VI. What special effects do the chain levels have?
First and foremost, you will notice a progressive
increase in loot drop frequency. Second, you might, depending
on the enemy you've killed, notice an increase in the amount of
loot the enemy drops.
-Level 1: This bag looks like a burlap bag a
burlar (bank robber, in some modern movies) might throw over
his shoulder filled with his ill-gotten spoils. This bag is tied off
with a ribbon of red material. Red, just for reference, in the age in
which most Final Fantasy games are set, was a color of royalty
signifying wealth. Such as the wealth, nominal as it may be,
contained in these bags. Loot drops are normal, and have no
extra effects what so ever.
-Level 2: This bag is not really a bag, it's a
coin. A bluish-blackish coin (looks like really badly tarnished
silver, in my opinion) with an image similar to the level 1 bag
embossed on it. The coin also has a whitish-blue aura around it.
Loot will be increased a bit, and you will get rare (approximately
10% of the time) a small health or mana restoration of about 5%
of your total health or mana to the party leader. Not a lot, but this
is a convenience to you, as it will allow you to continue killing
with out using as much mana.
-Level 3: This bag is, again, a coin and not
a bag. It looks identical to the coins dropped at loot level 2,
except that the blue areas are now gold instead, and the aura is
greenish-white instead of the original blue. You'll notice even
higher loot frequency, and even start seeing that you're getting
more than one item per drop, depending on your enemies. Again,
about 10% of the time, you will get a health or mana restore, but
this time the whole party benifits. About 5% of each active party
member's health or mana will be restored. Still not a lot, but
hey... saves even more mana. Given the levels I'm usually at
when I start farming a particular MoB, it's usually enough that I
don't have to heal often, and even when I do, my mana goes right
back to full fairly quickly. Great incase you run across a Rare
Spawn while chaining (yes, if I haven't killed it yet, I've been
known to break my chain for a Rare spawn).
-Level 4: This 'bag' is actually a huge,
golden coin with a full, life-sized image of the L1 bag, in exact
detail save color which, again, is gold with sunburstesque lines
coming off the bag. The coin also has a huge, golden aura
around it. Loot levels will be impressive compared to level one,
again having the fairly regular loot item giving more than one
copy of an item. Also, you will notice an increased rate of party
heals, almost ensuring that you don't need to bother with a
healing spell. You will also notice a new effect. You will get a
rare (10% of the time, roughly) either a Protection spell effect or a
Shell spell effect. You won't get both in the same loot coin, but
you'll get them so often that you'll probably have both going
most of the time anyways.
VII. What do I need to Chain?
Not a lot. Atleast one party member, a mob that you
can kill in large quantities with out dying (that IS the important
part, by the way, no point in trying to chain something that will just
eat you), and a bit of spare time. Really, that's it. Good weapons,
spells, armor, and skills are all superfluous. Just enemies you
can kill and time.
VIII. How can I tell what Chain level I'm on?
This is probably the easiest thing in the whole game to
figure out, as far as chaining goes. There are two ways to tell
what Chain level you are on. The fastest way is to kill something
in your chain and see what color the text is. If the text is a dark,
foresty green, you're still on Chain level 1. If your text is a
sky-blue, baby-blue color, you're on Chain level 2. If your text is
a sort of orangish-gold, you're at Chain level 3. Red is for stop,
and if you see red text, you're on the last one, Chain level 4.
IX. Chaining and Loot.
First off, let's explain what I mean when i say "Loot". I
mean any item that goes into the Loot secion of your inventory. I
do not mean armor, weapons, ammo, accessories or Items
(potions, motes, ect).
Second, a little more about loot in general. There is
one very important thing you need to know about loot in general,
and that is that getting a particular loot item does not
automatically exclude other loot items. Wolves, for example, will
frequently drop both Wolf Pelts and Fire Stones, and will
occasionally drop Wolf Pelts, Fire Stones, AND Potions. Skull
Defenders will very rarely drop Bone Fragment, Dark Stone, AND
Iron Helm. Each item a MoB drops is rolled for entirely
independantly of the others. Period, no exceptions.
Third, let's chat about Grimmiores. The cost a small
fortune, and early in the game are niegh impossible to get with
out breaking your bank or spending three days farming. But they
have two important effects on loot. Effect one is that they ADD an
extra item to the drop list. For the Forgotten Grimmiores, it's a
pebble from weak mobs. The sell for 2 gil a pop, and 198 gil for a
whole stack. The pebble drops do NOT affect the other drops at
all. Effect two is that all loot (yes, loot, not items or gear, just loot)
drops are increased a little, and this increase takes effect prior
to any chain level upgrades. Math: Total drop rate = (base drop
rate + grimmiore change + Accessory change) x Loot Level
change.
Fourth, let's go into a little more detail about how chain
levels affect your loot drops. Just the loot, we went over the
special effects earlier.
-Chain level 1: Loot drops. That's really
about all that can be said about Chain level 1.
-Chain level 2: Loot drops are increased by
aproximately 20% of their base. This also alters any item or
grimmiore based changes to the base drop rate.
-Chain level 3: Loot drops are increased by
aproximately 35% of their base. This also alters any itme or
grimmiore based changes to the base drop rate.
-Chain level 4: Loot drops are increased by
aproximately 50% of their base. This also alters any itme or
grimmiore based changes to the base drop rate. Also, there are
a select few enemies that ONLY drop their rares when you are at
Chain level 4.
-No, I am not 100% certain of these
changes, so feel free to email me with your observations. These
are just the aproximate drop changes i've observed myself while
farming. Yes, I did a lot of farming to make this guide.
X. Chaining and Gear drops.
When I say 'Gear' I'm refering to any item that is not a
loot item. Potion, Iron helm, bangle, Onion Bolt. All are Gear for
this purpose, because they do something in battle period. Gear
drops are completely, totally unaffected by loot level. A Skull
Defender will drop a helmet 3% of the time at Chain level 1, and
3 % of the time at Chain Level 3.
XI. Chaining and XP or LP.
When I say XP and LP, I mean experience points and
liscense points, obviously. These are completely, totally, and
utterly unaffected by chain levels. If you try to tell me otherwise,
I'll put you under the Total Load Of Crap section. The only thing
that changes how much XP or LP certain enemies award is the
Accessories that specifically say they do.
XII. Chaining and Stealing.
When I say 'Stealing' I am refering to both the Steal
teck command that Vahn and Fran start with, as well as the
Poach teck command. Stealing sort of is, and sort of is not
affected by Chain level. What you get is NOT affected by chain
levels. Stealing and Poaching are preset probabilities, and only
affected by Thief's Cuffs. Chain level does, however, affect the
chance that you will Steal and the chance that Poach will be
successful. Neither is, in my experience, a guarentee, though a
Chain level 4 does help drastically.
Another important thing to note about stealing is that any
mob present during a cutscene, mostly bosses, have their loot table
reset after a given cutscene. Quite similar to a certain boss in
Xeno Saga Episode 2 that changes form regularly. There's only a
couple bosses that this affects with chaining, but hey... That's
enough for me.
XIII. Reverse Chain effect. -Credit goes to Doyle.-
Most of you have probably not done enough
chain-breaking on other enemies to notice this, but it is a real
effect, and it does have a major role in how you can go about
farming. Let's say you have that elemental finally on your screen,
and you want that rare drop. Farm something else first, all the
way up to gold coin drops.
Why, you ask? Simple. The game has a small oddity
in the loot mechanics. When you kill something outside of your
chain, there is an effect called the Reverse Chain. It occurs when
you break a Chain, causing the first monsters drop percentages
to *reverse*... this means that, instead of a 20% drop chance for
that Earth Stone, you now have an 80% drop chance. Instead of
that 5% drop chance for that Sagitarius Gem, you now have a
95% chance. This only applies to the FIRST mob outside of the
chain, but it's a real phenomena. Also, this is the only time that I
will ever say that this affects non-Loot times. This effects every
single itme the mob drops. Yes, that means it's likely you'll see
everything that mob CAN drop on that one shot.
XIV. Good Chaining locations
This is just a FEW of the chaining locations I've found,
and the suggested enemy or enemies to kill. Feel free to pass
any more on to me, if you want to. Just put in the Area, section
and enemy, and a little bit (a LITTLE BIT, I swear, if you send me
a 3 page field report, I will be forced to edit. alot.) as to why you
feel the area is a good farm spot, and i'll be happy to post it,
possibly with an opinion of my own on the matter. I will also,
ofcourse, give you full credit and quote you as long as the email
isn't too long.
Estersand, Westersands, and Giza Plains.
Wolves and Hyenas are so common here that you can easily,
switching back and forth between them, farm up a large chain.
The Wolves do not drop multiple Wolf Pelts, but the Hyenas do
at higher chain levels. The wolves are just to get your chain
started, since the Hyenas are a bit stronger. This sets you up for
the healing drops.
The Luhsu Mines. In the Shunia Twinspan
section, about 40ish Skeletons will appear as you run around the
bridge itself. Apparently, this was a mafia job, since they are all
in the bridge iteslf. This is a great place to farm up those Bone
Fragments, though they might be a hair over your level your first
time here. Waiting until after you complete Wraithwall's Tomb is
not a bad idea, or even before it while you still have Vassler.
Fourth member never hurts, as long as you aren't trying to Poach
anything.
Wraithwall's Tomb. As you're going through
the Tomb, you will find two locations that spawn alot of the same
type of enemy. one spawns skeleton-style enemies, the other
zombie-types. Both are great, both can be reset by stepping into
the other then leaving again without killing anything. Just beware
the statues, and you'll do just fine.
XIV.A. User Submitted Good Chains
This looks to be very promising.
Unfortunately, my mem cards all went the way of the dodo on me,
so I can't confirm this one until I reach it again, but James
Fosnough submitted to me that another good chain farm is the
Still Shrine of Miriam. His instructions are as follows:
"hey i am an avide ff12 player and i know of a place to get a big
chain just go to the Stilshrine of Miriam and you will need the
Stone of the Condemner ( only way to get this stone is to fight
judge bergan and talk to one of the Kiltias ) to get there just go to
the first warp zone and use the stone and you will fight Zeromus
(if you havent already) and if you already fought zeromus then
you can fight alot of dark lords and get alot of blood darkened
bones which sell for over 1400 a piece and use the warp stone
twice ( beware for those nightwalkers cause they will take your
chain away) and continue for more bones
linkfan333"
Side note I was updated with afterwards, this is best done at
about Level 50, unless you are highly skilled. Not impossible
before hand, just a pain in the tucus.
The Nightwalkers are easy to take care of, just Stone them.
Gives you the XP and LP from killing them, but not the loot,
preserving the chain and simlpifying life.
This one I refered to several times in the
Guide, but for some reason I forgot to post it myself, so credit
for this one goes to Leon. He reminded me about the Courls
in the first section of Golmore Jungle. there's usually about a
dozen of them, and you can kill them, go through the zone with
the save crystal to the next zone (it's in the Ozmone Plains) then
turn around and come back to reset them and grab more. You
can do it around L30ish with a party, or Leon suggests using
Vaan by himself at L55 with a Deathbringer for fast, 1-hit kills.
Using Vaan at L55 and a Deathbringer will also allow you to
speedily level lower level party members with out getting them
killed, while still earning you boat loads of money since the
Panther Hides sell for a few hundred.
XV. Bad Chaining locations.
Most areas, the chains seem obviously good or
obviously bad. There are, however, a couple that just aren't
nearly as good as they appear at first glance. That is what I am
going to delve into in this section. Again, these are just a couple
I've found so feel free to send me more and I'll post them. If you
have a good reason as to why one of the Good Chaining
Locations is bad, I'd even post that. Mind you, it does need to be
a good reason.
Barheim Passage. Zombies, zombies
everywhere, power at 40 and leave it there! Remember your first
time playing this area? You were, like me, probably at like level
5 because everything before it was easy and you just sped
through it. I remember thinking "Oh, come on! Is there no end to
these bloody things?!" while i was in there, and then later, when I
had learned a little about chains, thinking "Hey, I bet if I had
been like level 7 or 8, that would have been a GREAT farming
spot!" I mean, there's a vendor right there, it's not a safe zone so
you don't loose your chain unless you heal/save at the crystal,
and you can just go back in and kill just the zombies after you've
purged everything else. Well, crap. I tested that theory. There
might be a lot of Zombie spawn locations once the lights go out,
but the spawns are not as infinite as they seem when you first
played through. You were just inexperienced and there were,
again, alot of spawns. Can't you just reset the area and come
back, you ask? Well, naturally you CAN, the only problem is that
if you do that, you've now reset the mobs interspersed in them,
making it too difficult to kill just zombies. Those of you that
noticed my comment previously about Stone, kudos on having a
great memory, but no. You can't use Stone here for one simple
reason: you don't get it until a while AFTER you get out of here
the first time.
Yensa Sandsea. Both of them. They have
alot of those little Urutan-Yensa buggers, and they do drop real
loot. You can easily chain them unto infinity if you want to. Thing
is, though, that they ONLY drop Earth Stones, and Earth Magicite
if you are at Chain level 4. So, in esscense, it's like waiving a
lolly infront of a baby and taking it away... you get to imagine the
loot, but you get squat in the end.
XVI. MoBs it's pointless to chain.
There are alot of reasons a MoB might be pointless to
chain. They may not drop anything. They might drop crap. They
might be have too many things interspersed, makign chaining
totally useless.
Humanoids. Any and all humaniods. Yes,
you will occasionally see a hunter in the wilderness areas near
towns. Thing is, Humanoids don't drop Loot. They drop Potions,
High Potions, you can get gil off them, some even drop armor or
weapons. But none drops Loot. For example, in Nalbina Prison,
there are ALOT of gaurds you could easily chain. Thing is, they
only drop potions and high potions. This is NOT useful, in that 1)
neither is actually useful as loot and 2) neither is affected by
Chain Level. Total waste of time. Unless you just want to stock up
on potions, in which case feel free, though I don't recall using
potions much after you get Fran and Balthier except very
situationally, when magic wasn't an option. (If you don't want to
agro Bomb-types, for example, Potions are great because they
aren't magic.)
Zombies (only in Barheim Passage). Too
many things get mixed in and you get your face beat in at this
level by those mobs. You can, but it's slow and wasteful. Wait for
the skeletons in Lhusu Mines. A little stronger, but way more
plentiful and nothing mixed in.
XVII. Rare Game Chaining
*Confirmed* Apparently, according to
Lysanuh, it is possible to chain rare game. As near as I can
determine, the trick is to find a rare game monster that has
appeared near the blue dotted line that seperates sections, kill
the rare monster, and then leave BEFORE the XP/XP numbers
pop up, you can re-enter and fight the monster again, continuing
a chain based off the species of monster the rare monster falls
under. I've never heard of this, but am including it because it
sounds plausible. If anyone has any info on this phenomenom,
please update me on it.
This has been recently confirmed, but unfortunately,
the individual who's FAQ was linked to me for usage in the
confirmation has refused to respond to my request to use the
chunk of his FAQ with the information in it to give a better
explination than I received from the original contributor, which
gives no locations which this can be performed at. Anyone with
information as to Rare Game can contact me via the normal
means. Thanks. And thanks to Sean for sendingme the email with
the confirmation site.
Update: Have, through multiple informants, received enough
information to officialy determine that there is, indeed, an easily
accessible rare-game early on. Infact, you can get to it, through
some rigorous running around, about the same time you leave to beat
the Rogue Tomato. I have to admit, it's more than a little advisible
to wait until you leave to take on Thextera the wolf queen, since the
path that you must traverse to GET there is somewhat painful at the
low levels you're at. The good news is that it's fairly easy to get
to the rare from the Westersand entrance.
From the Corridor of Sand, the first section in the
Westersands when you leave Rabanastre, you simply work your way north
to the divider line to the Galtea Downs. On the other side of this
lineis a Rare Game that has two special conditions to proc. You must
be alone, and you must be under 10% health, which can be accomplished
by turning off your healing gambit and beating yourself like a
red-headed step child caught stealing. There is another thing
that must be mentioned before you go hunting him. Bring a stock of
Pheonix Downs. Dustia is an Undead, and will be instantly vaporized
by a single Pheonix Down. Infact, if you have gambits when you go to
take him on, set one to "Undead: Pheonix Down" to save yourself
trouble. The last thing you need to know about chaining Dustia is
that you MUST leave the zone before he shows the XP and LP gains.
Not to fear, you still receive them, but if you wait until after they
show to leave, you have to go all the way back to Rabanastre to get
him to respawn. Just grab his drop and run like a chicken. In all, he
awards 1000 XP and 3 LP. You want to bring atleast 20 Downs for the
first assault on him, as he does drop items that sell for enough
to buy more, but they aren't a guarenteed drop item. 20 will ensure
you have enough to get a few of the drops he has. Dustia drops
Book Of Orgain, which sell for 532 gil each, and Flame Staves, which
sell for 1200 a pop.
My take on this: cheating. Not something I
tend to approve of with any game, but especially one as simple
as FFXII to get stuff in. Besides, why chain the rare game when
abusing the RCE is so much easier and only an exploit and
doesn't smell suspiciously like cheating.
Another good rare chaining spot, as donated by Alexander,
and I quoth
"The other thing was in the Necrohol there is a rare
enemy called Helvinek, it is very powerful and it is the only one
you can get the grand armor from (it is the strongest armor in the
game). You can't reverse chain it because you have to kill different
eneimes to make it appear. But it may be the easiest rare game to
chain not counting how hard it is to kill. The reason it is easy to chain
is also the reason it is a bastard to kill, it is an undead that can
teleport and it never stops following you. This means it can cross
zone boundaries in the Necrohol and chase you until you leave, but
the game DOES NOT have the SAME monster cross boundaries. That
means if you beat one up and change zones it will appear fully healed
but if you go back to the other zone it will appear and still be injured.
I discovered that even though it is the same monster the game treats
each one seperately. So even if you kill one, wait for it to disappear,
then wait for the exp and lp numbers to disappear when you change
zones it will still be there waiting if you changed zones at least once
while fighting it. So you can create an infinite number of these rare
game to kill untill you get the armors that you want or for exp and lp
( 6594-6770 xp, 13 lp) but it is very powerful in a dangerous area so
that would have to be mid-late game chaining. Also it is undead and
weak to holy but it is immune to life so no Pheonix down insta-kills."
So, basically, force him to appear, then run like a coward...
(My speciality, by the way) but remember to keep going back after
you kill him to get a new one. Don't bother with Life, Raise, or
Pheonix Downs, as he's immune to them, but heals and Holy work
great.
My take on this one: Not nearly so much of a cheat, since
this one *can't be instakilled for less than 500 gold*. Unless you're
just that bloody powerful, in which case you probably don't need to
farm this area for much other than the armor. Abuse to yourheart's
content.
XVIII. Good Reverse Chaining Locations
First one, the Yensa Sandsea, abusing the Urutan-Yensa.
No, the Urutan-Yensa don't drop anything in the way of Loot, which
is why they are in the Bad Chain Location section. They are, however,
extremely plentiful. Which is useful for taking out things like Wyverns,
Pineapples, and Entites for loot witht the Reverse Chain technique.
Mmmm... loot...
XIX. Usages of Poison
As I mentioned earlier, the use of Poison does not
break chains because you are not actually initiating the kill,
despite the fact that it still reads as a full kill. You recieve loot
as though you had built the entire initial chain using that mob.
I can see many uses for it, though it is a little time consuming.
Chaining up, for example, Wolves to max chain level, then killing
Dive Talons with Poison would net you the Dive Talon's gold
coin level drops with out screwing your Wolf chain. There are
Entites in the areas with the Urutan-Yensa, but I do not know how
easy it would be to finish off an Entite with poison. Seems that
something with 40K+ hp might be a little more... durable than a
Dive Talon. Though, if combined with Disease, it would rapidly
lower the Entite's max HP, though most of them can use a spell
that works better than Remedy for knocking off major status
ailments. Used situationally, this will be helpful in many regards,
though like the healing benifits of the coins, it's not an immense
help by any stretch of the imagination. Merely one more
convenience.
XX. Unconfirmed Rumors.
-Rusty, multiple drops at chain level 1- So, dispite
over 180 hours dedicated to my first play through of the game,
and another 50 on the current play through, mostly dedicated
to chaining on the second play through (I checked every enemy
Icould find for potential killing sprees), I apparently never got a
multiple-pelt drop of a wolf on chain level one. I don't know how
I could possibly have missed this, but it apparently happens.
Someone feel free to validate this theory for me, preferably
With pictures, but if I get a couple people saying it's true, I'll
buy it.
-Alexander, petrification loot- According to one mister
Alexander, petrified enemies DO, infact drop loot. Furthermore,
you will apparently get loot based off of your current kill chain.
Ifsomeone could verify any of this, much thanks would be given!
XXI. Total Load Of Crap.
None yet.
XXII. Exploitation of Reverse Chain effect and Stealing.
I've gone over two things in this FAQ. One you thought
was done, one you probably thought was a little odd to even
think of. But there is more on both. The Reverse Chain effect is
important for farmers who happen to run across Rare monsters. It
happens to all of us. We're just sitting there, slaughtering the
Urutan-Yensa, when suddenly, -BAM!-, there's a Pineapple in our
face. Well, almost all the Rare monsters have a rare drop loot.
This is great because you can walk up, beat the crap out of it
until it goes -pwick- (squishing sound, by the way) and it drops
extra special rare item.
As to the topic of Stealing. Do you remember when I
said that your chances of Stealing were affected by chains, but
not your loot table since you only Steal one item? Well, there's a
small exploit to this as well. Your chances of stealing are
boosted blanket-style. It doesn't matter what you're Stealing
from, just that you're using the Steal command and you have a
Chain. You can use it in conjunction with Thief's Cuffs to farm
those rare items much faster.
This is also a useful prep note for some bosses that have
cutscenes, as it does give you more than one chance to hijack thier
stuff.
XXIII. Legal Mumbo Jumbo.
The whole of this work was done by me, save for
where credit is given to others. As this work is mine and mine
alone, it has thusly been copy-righted by me. The only site that
has permission toa use this FAQ, currently, is GameFAQs.com. If
you wish to use this FAQ, in part or in whole, for any purpose
other than personal usage, email me and ask my permission. If
you aren't a known piece of trash, I'll probably give it as long as
you give me my due credit. If you see this FAQ on any major web
site other than GameFAQs, or if you see what appears to be a
section of my FAQ copied and pasted, but with no credit to me,
please inform me. If you copy and sell my FAQ for profit with out
my permission, be aware that I do expect 80% royalties on every
sale. If you copy and give away hard copies of my FAQ, I do
expect $5 USD sent to me. You can get my PayPal info from me
by emailing me. If you take my guide and post it to any site other
than those listed under my permissions list, or take my guide and
post it under your name, I expect $50,000 USD sent to my PayPal
account. Thank you.
-Zarius
XXIV. Credit.
To those that have helped me with my FAQ, thank you.
You know who you are already, but so that others know that I'm
not a glory hog, here it is in black and white.
Doyle. One of my class mates at school. He
mentioned the Reverse Chain effect to me, asking if I'd ever
heard of it. No, I hadn't. I went home, tested it and found it to be a
measurable effect, and have included it. Thanks, Doyle!
linkfan333. Submitted good chain location in the
Stillshrine of Miriam to fight the Dark Lords.
Lysanuh. Submitted rare monster chain technique that I
inserted under Unconfirmed Rumors. Also ruined my faith in the
Gamer population. Read the WHOLE section before you go and
tell me that I must not have tried to go very high with my chains.
Sean. Sent me a web site to confirm the rumor about
chaining Rare game.
Leon. Reminded me of the Courls in Golmore Jungle.
Also gave me a new use for the courls.
Edge, Alexander, Zeshan, Robyn, and Senri. Edge was the first,
but everyone here tossed me an email giving good directions for Dustia!
Raymond, for telling me about the fact that bosses reset their
loot after a cut-scene.
Cdw900 for showing me that the Urutan-Yensa DO have a good
purpose.
Updates.
v1.0 Initial draft. Completed, compiled and submitted.
V1.1 Fixed several gramatic and formatting issues,
resubmitted and posted.
V1.2 Added Linkfan333's contribution to FAQ under
User Submitted Good Chain Locations and Credit page. Added
Lysanuh's contribution to Unconfirmed Rumors and Credit Page.
V1.3 Added Poison to list of things that do not break
chain. Added new section entitled Usages of Poison Moved
Lysanuh's contribution to new section entitled Chaining Rare
Game thanks to contribution by Sean. Added Leon's reminder
about courls under User Submitted Good Chain Locations.
v1.4 Added info about the Dustia chain and the boss
cutscene resets.
v1.5 Added Good Reverse Chain section. Made
correction to the Table of Contents. Moved updates secion
to bottem of guide.
v1.6 Added new good Reverse Chain item donated
by Alexander. Updated info about how to estimate chain
level-up (specifically, altered the section that said you would
never reach more than 100 before maxing out the chain
level). Added two items to the Rumors section, Stone
dropping loot (Alexander) and Wolves (and presumably
other mobs) dropping multiple items prior to attaining
Chain level-up status.*plays the Super Mario Bros. Level-up
music* (Rusty).